Two poems in the upcoming Spring issue of Elohi Gadugi: Narratives for a New World

Two of my poems, "We Are All Vagabonds," and "Channelling" appear in the upcoming Spring issue of Elohi Gaduga: Narratives for a New World, a journal in Oregon.

"Elohi gaduga" is their version of the Cherokee "e-lo-hi ga-du-hv" ᎡᎶᎯ ᎦᏚᎲ meaning the earth together in community.

I have read "We Are All Vagabonds" at many venues over the last several years, and it's one of my favorite ones to read before groups. It grew out of reflecting upon several day hikes to the Chattooga  River with Georgia Forest Watch where we would gather around a campfire at the river's edge for a poetry reading and some of Marie Dunkle's rousing Celtic fiddle playing. Around that campfire we were from many far flung places, and after our brief gathering around what was an ancient circle, no doubt we would scatter again to perhaps never to meet in just this way again. Every life is its own journey. We humankind have been doing this for millennia.


My poem "Channelling" explores a poignant moment I shared with my father in the last year of his life. I created an image to accompany this poem:

To subscribe to this journal go to http://egjournal.org/

Selections from exhibit: "Seedlight & More: Painting & Poems" through May 3, 2015

CENTER FOR ART AND REHABILITATIVE ENERGIES

SHELLMAN, GEORGIA

March 8 - May 3, 2015

Paintings and Illustrated Poems

"We  spend so much of our lives seeking to understand the patterns around us.

This I do too.

And then there is the gravity that bears upon all of them,

and us,

as well as the desire for ascension.

These paintings and poems are my way to understand this. "

- Laurence Holden

Here are a few selections from the exhibit:

"Rainy Mountain Dreaming," 2012

oil on canvas 49"h. x 39"w.

"Of Wintering Willows," 2013
acrylic on birch plywood.
48"h. x 36"w. x 2 3/4"d. 

"Seedlight:Under December Moon, Dreaming," 2014

oil on canvas  20”h. x 16”w. 

 

 

"Seedlight: In Winter's Evensong," 2014

oil on canvas 14"h. x 12"w.

"As We Pass Our Words"

Video: A Poetry Reading

Meeting with Georgia Governor to lend him some art for his walls.

The Georgia Council for the Arts asked me to lend a painting to hang in Georgia Governor Nathan Deal's office through September. Here's the photo opp:

This loan is part of the Ga. Council's program The Art of Georgia II: Portraits of a Community "seeking to capture the uniqueness of communities throughout Georgia as seen, explored, and depicted through the artist’s eye."

This painting "In the Valley of the Little Tennessee,"  was painted on an early spring morning in the North Georgia Mountains well before leaf-out. I have stood in a parking lot in the small village of Dillard and painted the world as it was creating itself out of shadow and mist - as pure and simple a form of revelation as one could ever hope for.

In this painting, as in every other, I paint what I see - both the visible and the invisible in it. And what I see here is change - the morning coming and going, the day, the seasons, people, cultures. They all come and go, but these mountains and valleys and clouds remain. For thousands of years Mississipians tended this valley, then for centuries the Cherokees. Then the Scotch Irish, and today the fields here about are fast being replaced with RV parks, mobile home developments and shopping malls. But if we look deeper, the bone and marrow of what is are still here, and always have been - the mountains, the valley, the sky, the light and the dark.

My Poem "The Gate" featured in the inaugural issue of Snapdragon: A Journal of Art & Healing

Snapdragon: a Journal of Art & Healing, March issue, 2015

I am pleased to be able to support this new venture which recognizes the deep relationship between art and healing. The editors' hope is that" this will be a place to which you come as you journey the luminous path to wholeness."

Here is an image I created to go with the poem: